Supreme Court closes 2009 contempt case against Prashant Bhushan, Tarun Tejpal
The Supreme Court accepted lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s apology tendered in 2020 and closed the contempt proceedings against Bhushan and Tarun Tejpal
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed contempt proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal, accepting their apologies tendered in 2020 for the activist lawyer’s 2009 interview.
“In view of the apology tendered by the respondents, it is not necessary for us to continue with the proceedings,” a bench of justices Indira Banerjee, Surya Kant and MM Sundresh said as the top court closed the 13-year-old case.
The contempt case has its genesis in a September 2009 interview given by Prashant Bhushan to Tehelka magazine in which he claimed that half of the previous 16 Chief Justices of India were corrupt. Senior advocate Harish Salve brought Bhushan’s statement to the notice of the court based on which the top court initiated contempt of court case against the activist lawyer in November 2009.
The case was listed by the top court before a bench headed by justice Arun Mishra on July 24, 2020, more than eight years after it was last heard.
Prashant Bhushan expressed regret over his remarks against judges in August 2020. “In my interview to Tehelka in 2009, I have used the word corruption in a wide sense meaning lack of propriety. I did not mean only financial corruption or deriving any pecuniary advantage. If what I have said caused hurt to any of them or to their families in any way, I regret the same,” he said.
Bhushan’s statement underlined that he had no intention to lower the prestige of the judiciary in which he had complete faith. “I regret if my interview was misunderstood as doing so, that is, lower the reputation of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, which could never have been my intention at all,” he said.
But the bench did not accept the offer of regret. Bhushan asked the three judges to send the case to a Constitution Bench and suggested five issues that it could be asked to rule on. The important among the five was: “Whether the expression of a bona fide opinion about the extent of corruption in any section of the judiciary would amount to contempt of court.” And If yes, “Whether the person who expresses such opinion…is obliged to prove that his opinion is correct or whether it is enough to show that he bona fide held that opinion.”
At its hearing on Tuesday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Kamini Jaiswal appearing for both Bhushan and Tejpal respectively, said, “Now the apology has been tendered. Nothing remains in this matter.” The bench accepted Sibal’s statement and brought the matter to a close.
Bhushan was convicted for contempt of court over his tweets in June 2020 in which he targeted the then Chief Justice of India SA Bobde sitting on a bike and accused him of shutting down courts for the common man. In the other tweet, he accused the judiciary of destroying democracy without a formal Emergency. He was convicted on August 30, 2020 and told to pay a Re 1 fine.